Marc Smith visits the opening rounds of heat 9 of the alt New-Co 

Four teams returned from Group A in the previous heat. There was no MOSS this month, and they were replaced by DE BOTTON, who had missed the previous heat. Those five were joined by AMATEURS (USA), promoted from Group B.  

As usual, we begin with some problems. We will discover later how your choices would have worked. Firstly, with just the opponents vulnerable, you are West holding: 

What action, if any, do you take? 

Next, with just your side vulnerable, you hold as North: 

What action, if any, do you take? 

Finally, with neither side vulnerable, you are sitting West with: 

What action, if any, do you take? 

While you consider those, we kick off the action in Round 1, and a meeting between the leading two teams from the previous heat, FREDIN (Sweden/South Africa) and SALVO (Turkey). The only major swing of the match came late on: 

Gokhan Yilmaz had to start with Stayman in order to make an invitational notrump raise. Despite locating the 4-4 spade fit, he continued with his original plan, and Sedat Aluf duly raised to the nine-trick game. Indeed, only one of the six North/South pairs in Group A played game in spades, the other five all playing in 3NT. Although spades come in for one loser, 4♠  has no chance with both minor-suit finesses offside. Not that 3NT is a great contract either. 

A diamond opening would give declarer a legitimate chance of making the contract, but all five East players in Group A who were faced with this lead problem opened with a heart. At our table, Aluf won high in hand and played ace and another spade. West’s doubleton king solved declarer’s spade guess and now the focus was on Marten Gustawsson, who accurately switched to clubs (although a diamond return also breaks the contract as East can then set up his long card before declarer can make nine tricks). Declarer covered with the ten but Johan Sylvan, knowing that his partner had nothing else of use, won with the ♣Q and exited safely with a second round of hearts. Declarer won in dummy and tried a diamond to the jack and king, but Sylvan persisted with hearts. Declarer was thus left with a club to the king as his last hope. When that failed he was one down. N/S -50. 

Alon Apteker had a natural 2NT available, so he avoided giving the opening leader any distributional information. Even so, Ilker Ayaz still opted for a heart, although a spade also would not have given anything away. Peter Fredin also played ace and another spade right away, West winning with the ♠K. Here, though, Ozgur Goksel exited with what looked like a safe heart at trick four. Fredin made no mistake now: he cashed his spade winners and led a diamond towards dummy’s queen. Ayaz hopped up with the ♦K and exited with a third round of hearts, but declarer now cashed his two diamond winners ending in dummy and led a club towards his hand, covering East’s card with the ♣10. East won the ♣Q but had then to lead around to declarer’s ♣K, giving him his ninth trick. Nicely played: N/S +400 and 10 IMPs to FREDIN. 

The Swedes got off to a winning start with a 20-12 victory over the team they had just pipped for the title last time out. BLACK drew 29-29 with DE BOTTON, but VINITA defeated the newcomers 43-19 to leave the Scandinavians in second place after the opening salvoes.  

The top match in Round 2 was VINITA vs DE BOTTON, and what a shootout it proved to be, the two sides trading 100 IMPs over 16 boards. This early deal illustrates the level to which modern players are now willing to pre-empt. Every West player was faced with the first of this month’s bidding problems: 

Although the West hand is nothing to write home about, at four of the six tables in Group A, the West player decided it was worthy of a 1♠ overcall – a rarity indeed to find Tor Erik Hoftaniska trundling along in the herd! Only one of the six passed, and I was rather surprised to find that there were more passers than 2♠ bidders, as the five-card weak jump overcall seems to have become almost de rigueur over the past couple of years. Perhaps we will see what the BBO Prime Bidding Panel makes of it sometime in the coming months. The problem with 1♠, even at this vulnerability, is that partner might be tempted to think you have at least something, hence Tor Helness’s final double of South’s jump to 4♥

A member of the ‘First Family of Danish bridge’, Morten Bilde first represented his country by collecting a bronze medal at the 1986 European Junior Championships in Budapest. He made his debut in the Danish Open team in 2004, and has now been a regular member for almost two decades. 

Hoftaniska led a spade and Bilde allowed East to win. He then won the second spade with the ace, played a club to king and ace, and ruffed when East continued with a third round of spades. Bilde then played a diamond, successfully finessing the ten, and led a low trump from the table. When Tor Helness did not split his honours, Bilde inserted the ♥10, which won. He then cashed one high trump and led winning diamonds. East could score one trump trick, but that was the third and last trick for the defenders. Nicely played: N/S +790. 

Note that if East splits his heart honours on the first round of trumps, declarer wins, cashes the ♣Q, and then plays a diamond to the ace. East must ruff to save the overtrick, but he is then endplayed either to lead a trump, giving declarer the finesse, or to concede a ruff-and-discard with a club, thus giving declarer entry to dummy to take the marked trump hook. 

Of the six candidates to take pre-emptive action on this West hand, my money would have been on Hoftaniska, but at least it comes as no surprise that it was a Scandinavian. Not content with a pedestrian 2♠ ovecall, though, Andreas Plejdrup, another former Danish junior international, really went for the throat with a leap to 3♠. Even Artur Malinowski could not stretch to make a negative at this level, and Emil Jepsen compounded his partner’s good work with a raise to game on the East cards. 

Assuming that South would have made 4♥, this would have been an excellent save by the Danes: even starting with two rounds of trumps only beats it by two as long as declarer plays clubs immediately. Janet de Botton was virtually forced to double 4♠ on her big hand. Malinowski might have passed, but doing so only limits the loss on the deal to 10 IMPs, so his understandable but erroneous decision to press on to 5♦ (declarer can make only ten tricks in either red suit) was relatively inexpensive. The defenders have a trick in each black suit and East’s heart pips are just good enough to ensure a third defensive trick. N/S  -100 and 13 IMPs to VINITA. 

VINITA won the big shootout 59-41 to go to the top of the leaderboard. BLACK defeated SALVO 41-19 to move up into second spot, and FREDIN saw off AMATEURS 37-31 to keep their place in the top half of the table.  

It was the Swedes against the leaders on another high-scoring set of deals in Round 3. Board 2 produced a double-digit swing in all three Group A matches. 

The auction at this table seems eminently sensible all round. The Swedes might have bid on to 5♠ for +650, but Marten Gustawsson quite reasonably settled for taking the sure plus score against the diamond save. The defence gave nothing away and thus Vinita Gupta was held to eight tricks: N/S +500. 

Soren Bilde started with a negative double on the North cards, but the auction then followed a similar path, with East making a pre-emptive diamond raise and South bidding 3♠. Had Peter Fredin then jumped to 5♦ as Gupta had done on the West cards, the board might well have been flat, or perhaps even a 4-IMP gain for the Danes. When, instead, Fredin settled for a sedate raise to 4♦ at his second turn, though, Bilde had the space to roll out RKCB. Emil Jepsen showed two of the missing three key cards, and now Bilde had to guess. There are plenty of layouts on which 6♠ will be making, but this was not one of them. Even though the defenders did not cash their top hearts, in a spade contract there is nowhere for them to go. N/S -100 and 12 IMPs to FREDIN, enroute to a 44-33 victory. 

In BLACK vs AMATEURS, David Gold/Andrew Black were allowed to play the hand in 4♠. When the Americans bid to the doomed spade slam at the other table, that was 13 IMPs to the English team, who leapfrogged VINITA to claim top spot on the leaderboard with a 64-31 win.  

The third Group A table produced two variations on the second of this week’s bidding problems. 

After Erke Suicmez’s pre-emptive 3♦ overcall, David Bakhshi had to decide whether to advance with 3♠ and ignore a possible heart fit, or to start with a negative double and risk losing the fifth spade. When he chose to keep both majors in play with a double, East’s jump to 5♦ was too rich for Tom Townsend. He passed and then passed again when Bakhshi doubled.  

Bakhshi kicked off with the ♦A, but his heart switch at trick two gave away one of the five tricks to which the defence was entitled. A good result for the Turks: N/S +300. 

Nezih Kubac first represented Turkey at the 1988 World Team Olympiad, and he has now been a regular member of his national side for more than three decades. He collected a bronze medal in the Open Teams at the 2016 European Winter Games and he became a European champion with victory in partnership with fellow countryman Nafiz Zorlu in the Open Pairs at the 2017 European Transnational Championships.

After the same start to the auction as in the other room, Gokhan Yilmaz doubled 5♦ on the South cards. That left Kubac with the problem posed at the top of this article. Obviously, he could have passed and earned a small swing by taking the maximum number of tricks in defence. Instead, though, Kubac advanced to the six-level with a ‘pick a slam’ 5NT. Yilmaz might have chosen spades and thus suffered the same fate as declarers in that contract in the other matches, When he first suggested playing in his own suit, though, Kubac was happy with the quality of his support and produced dummy.

With spades as trumps, declarer always has two unavoidable losers whatever happens, but the same is not true with clubs as trumps. Here, the defenders needed to cash their two top hearts right away. When Thor Erik Hoftaniska eminently reasonably led his singleton spade, declarer still needed some luck but he was in with a chance. Yilmaz won the opening spade lead, led a trump to the queen, cashed the ♦A, and returned to hand with the ♣A. He then ruffed his diamond with dummy’s last trump and attempted to get back to his hand with a second round of spades. Luck was with the Turks when West could not produce the outstanding trump. Yilmaz drew the last trump and subsequently pitched a heart from his hand on dummy’s long spade. A spectacular N/S +1370, and 14 IMPs to SALVO. Although their 51-9 win over the strong DE BOTTON team still left them in fourth place, the Turks had served notice that they were still serious contenders.

The leading two teams, BLACK and VINITA met head on in Round 4, and there was plenty of excitement to keep those watching on BBO Vugraph entertained. Both West players had to deal with the last of this week’s bidding problems on Board 11.

A fast-rising star of Danish bridge, Andreas Plejdrup was a member of his country’s various junior teams from 2013 until 2019. His double on the West cards suggested both unbid suits and tolerance for his partner’s suit, which seems to be a reasonable description. Simon Hult jumped to game on the North cards and, holding nothing more than the sounds two-level overcall she had already shown, Vinita Gupta decided she had no reason to bid again. 

Although understandable with her partner having shown hearts, Gupta’s opening lead of the ♥K did not advance the cause of the defence. Declarer won and led a trump to East’s ace, and now Gupta switched to the ♣9. Plejdrup won with the ♣A and switched to a diamond through declarer’s king to ensure the contract went down, so E/W +50 and perhaps the Swedes would gain a couple of IMPs for an extra undertrick.  

After the same start to the auction, Andrew McIntosh decided that the main feature of his hand was the chunky club suit. Having passed in first seat rather than opening with a club pre-empt, is this not exactly the sort of hand one would expect for a 3♣ bid? If partner hates clubs, he should know that he can rebid his own suit and find at least a modicum of support. Here, too, North jumped to 4♠  but, far from hating clubs, Tom Paske found himself with a very suitable hand on which to take a two-way shot. Surely the worst outcome was that both contracts were one down and he had swapped a small plus for a small minus, whereas the upside was much more significant if either game was making. 

Inevitably, North doubled and led the ♠K, but there was little to the play. Declarer won and took a losing trump finesse to North’s king, but there was little that Jepsen could do other than cash the ♥A to save the overtrick. E/W +550 and 11 IMPs to BLACK, who won the match 60-34 to extend their lead at the top of the table. The other big winners in this round were the Turks, SALVO blanking AMATEURS 51-0 to move into second spot. In the other Group A match, DE BOTTON squeezed past FREDIN 31-29. With four matches played, these were the standings: 

BLACK	58.64 VPs
SALVO	49.91
FREDIN	46.48
VINITA	41.21
DE BOTTON	27.68
AMATEURS	16.08

Elsewhere, LEBOWITZ led EDMONDS in the race for promotion from Group B. HARRIS had built a lead over KRUSE’S BRIDGECIRCUS in Group C, whilst ROIKO headed Group D ahead of The MAGICIANS. 

We will return next week with the best of the action from the middle matches in this heat.